The International Workshop on "Radiation Damage to DNA" will cover recent advances in the understanding of the pathways initiated by radiation energy deposition in DNA through the chemical and biochemical changes in the DNA to the ultimate biological consequences of the DNA lesions. This the eighth in a series of workshops that bring together radiation physicists, chemists and biologists to discuss radiation damage to DNA in a highly interactive, multidisciplinary format. The workshop will be held May 25-30, 2004 at the Banff Conference Centre in Banff, Canada. The number of participants is limited to 105. The participants will be from academic and research institutions world-wide and will include graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and mid-career and senior scientists. The topics that will be covered at the meeting include transient DNA radicals, identification and measurement of base/nucleoside end products in irradiated DNA, track structure, clustered damage, charge/energy transfer in DNA, high LET effects, reactions of low energy radiations, role of chromatin structure in DNA damage induction and repair, radiolytic footprinting, structure of damaged DNA bases and the proteins that recognize them, repair of DNA base damage, radiation-induced strand break termini, repair of DNA double strand breaks, mutation induction, and other biological consequences of unrepaired DNA damage. An important goal of this meeting is to decrease polarization by discipline and stimulate new, interdisciplinary thinking and experimental approaches by scientists who become aware of the relevance of findings from other fields to their own work. Although the focus spans physics, chemistry and biology, the common goal of all the participants is to increase understanding of the biological endpoints in terms of predictable physical events and chemical alterations that occur in irradiated DNA. To this end, a strong effort will be made to work on a common language between all the disciplines, with the objective of facilitating communications and research interactions among individuals in the various research areas.